Working: OSHA focuses on housekeeper injuries

By L.M. Sixel |
May 13, 2010

Asservice workers go, hotel employees — and especially housekeepers — have higher rates of on-the-job injuries, according to a report last year in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Housekeepers are prone to repetitive stress injuries from such continual work as changing sheets, washing bathroom floors and vacuuming, according to nine researchers who studied three years of government-required accident logs at five union-represented hotels.

More surprising, however, is that Hispanic housekeepers had a proportionally higher rate of injuries than non-Hispanic cleaners, according to the study. The research didn't address possible explanations for that.

It recently hosted a conference in Houston on health and safety issues facing Latino workers.

While OSHA doesn't have a specific ergonomic standard — it was repealed by Congress in 2001 before it was scheduled to go into effect — the agency has the “general duty clause” as an enforcement tool. It requires that employers provide a safe and healthy place to work, Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, said in a telephone interview.

More study needed

Injuries from lifting patients in nursing homes are well-documented, as are ways to avoid such injuries, Barab said. However, in other occupations, including hotel housekeeping, the problem hasn't been studied as thoroughly, he said.

OSHA has had several discussions with hotel housekeepers about their injuries and is looking closely at ergonomics enforcement. The agency also has been studying companies trying to prevent ergonomic hazards, he said.

Barab recalled his visit last summer to a printing plant in San Antonio where the H-E-B grocery chain prints labels and promotional material. Workers there use specially engineered automated equipment to avoid back, wrist and shoulder injuries.

OSHA is also adding musculoskeletal disorders to the injury and illness log that employers must keep, he said. That should increase the accuracy of record-keeping and provide a better idea of the extent and type of workplace injuries.

The hospitality industry is also paying attention.

Since the study came out last year, hotel companies have been working on new ways to reduce injuries, said Joe McInerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association in Washington. Some have added extra employees so housekeepers don't have to do heavy lifting.

Celia Alvarez, who was in Houston for the recent OSHA conference, described overwhelming pain in her hands, shoulders, back and knees as she pulled and tugged to change sheets, pillowcases and bedcovers during her 19-year career as a hotel housekeeper in Long Beach, Calif. She's already had knee and shoulder surgery and has operations scheduled on her lower back and hands.

Leg was ‘mop handle'

Alvarez, who cleaned 25 to 30 rooms a day before becoming permanently disabled, said that for years she was not given a mop to clean bathroom floors, so she'd throw down towels and move her leg around, using it as if it were a mop handle.

Alvarez said she received little training in how to avoid repetitive stress injuries. If someone was injured, the housekeepers would be led in group warm-up exercises before a shift began, but that would usually last just for a few days, she said.

Lex Frieden, professor of health information sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and a specialist in workplace disability issues, said that while exercises can prevent injuries and strengthen muscles, it's hard to follow that discipline.

First response wrong

The first response for many injured workers is to take pain medication. But blocking the pain can cause workers to keep doing what injured them in the first place, possibly aggravating their injuries.

Training workers on the proper way to lift can prevent injuries, Frieden said. For example, to flip a mattress, the worker should bend at the knees, not at the waist.

“Once you show it to someone, it makes sense,” he said. But if you don't know, you bend at the waist.